email protocol - student handout.doc

8/8/2019 Email Protocol - Student Handout.doc

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Prof. P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

Professional Email: Advice, Suggestions & Instructions*

By P.V. (Sundar) Balakrishnan

(With contributions from Nancy Kool and the many UWB faculty)

In contrast to emails and text messages to friends and family, professional business emailshould conform to certain standards. Here are some guidelines to help you make the bestpossible impression and achieve the results you want:

Revise rather than sending off a first draft.

Chill Not Flame:

After you have drafted your email, take the time to carefully reread and reconsiderit. In most cases, you will see things to revise and clarify.

If you must craft an email that criticizes or flames someone, it is best to sleep on it(compose it and keep it in the Draft folder) for 24 hours before sending it out.

Perhaps the next day you may think better of sending out such a note, or may

wish to edit its tone. Proof read and edit, with the tips and standards below in mind.

Be courteous:

Casualness can look like rudeness, especially when the recipient of your email is acustomer, a superior, or a colleague. Observe the same conventions of politeness

throughout the email that you would in a formal business letter

Addressing the Recipient

Begin with a salutation. Hey Palm is not a great idea! Dear Professor Lo would

be better.

In general, employ titles in salutations unless the instructor has asked the student, becauseof the length of interaction and familiarity, to call her or him by their first name.

Dont start the message without addressing the intended party (recipient of yourmessage). This is particularly true if you are sending it out to multiple addresses

and CCing multiple people with one email.

If you have been BCCd, do not hit reply to all. Reply only to the person who sentyou the message.

The exceptions to this are when you are in middle of a long thread of messagesand the major participants to email conversation have been clearly identifiedearlier.

It is better to err on the side of being too formal rather than too casual.Examples:

o Dont start by saying, Yo or Hoy or hey.o Do say, Dear Prof. YYYY or Dear Mr. LowlyWorm.

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Closing an email:

This might include thanking the recipient for his or her help or time; for the

opportunity to comment or give input; or apologizing for any inconvenience yourrequest or problem may be causing the recipient.

It is a good idea to say, Regards, Best regards, sincerely yours, etc.Examples:

Thanks in advance for your time. Thank you for any consideration you can give this matter. I appreciate the opportunity to contribute to this discussion. Thanks for the opportunity to comment on this issue/be a part of the discussion. I apologize for the inconvenience, and appreciate your willingness to consider an

extension.

Ending Signature

Do make sure to append a signature line with at least your name.Dont make the reader guess as to who sent the email.

International Context:Especially in the heightened importance of the global context, the use of formal

salutations and polite closing statements are crucial if you are to build and

maintain meaningful business relationships.

Remember that politeness does not cost you anything, to paraphrase WinstonChurchill. It may get you the opening that you need.

Subject line:

Your subject line should also be informative. It will impact whether the recipients

wants to pay any attention to it. You may want to state the main topic, e.g.

marketing strategy problem, software glitch, request budget input, orrequest for extension.

Do Specify the Course/Group Identifier/Section clearly in the SubjectHeading. Remember that your client/boss/professor may get hundreds of

emails and be teaching multiple courses and your can get misplaced easily.

GROUP Work Related Email: Do CC all members of your Group. The exception to this rule is when you are complaining about your group

member.

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Body of the Email:

Announce your purpose in the first sentence.Clarifying the subject and purpose of your email at the outset is a good

strategic move.

Examples:

I am writing to inform you of a problem with the marketing report. This is to request your input into our current budget revisions. I would like to request an extension of the deadline for the marketing plan.

Be organized.Even though emails tend to be shorter, they should still have a clear outline

and topics.

To be professional, the text of an email should not be disorganized or writtenin a stream-of-consciousness manner. Informal emails are a different matter.

Write in paragraphs

One topic per paragraph. In email, short paragraphs are fine.

Be concise.Crispness is important.

Limit the subject matter.

For best results, send separate emails for different issues and situations.

Attachments:

Name of File:If there is an attachment, the name of the document should be consistent with the

name of the email subject or at least consistent with the topic so that the reader is notconfused.

The email that you wish to send is about marketing plan. So ensure that theattachment should suggest that this is about a marketing plan for a specific group in aparticular class. In short, do not send a file that merely says just name of

group.doc.

AsyoustarttosendinyourPPT/WORD/fileattachmentstotheProfessor,pleaserememberthattheywillprobablyreceivealargenumberofthem.

PleasethinkabouttheRECEIVER(yourboss;TA;Instructor;client,etc.)ofthefilewhenyouemaildocumentsofanysort.

So,ifyounameyourfileHW1.PPTorMEMO.DOC,thiswillrequiretheInstructor

to

open

the

file

and

rename

it

with

your

name

or

some

unique

identifier.Whilethismakesiteasyforyouasthesender,itmakesitbutvery

hardforthereceiver/client.

Asacourtesytoyourselfinyourdigitalcareer,pleaseincludeinthedocumentfilename:YournameandTopic.

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Examples:

Ex1:T_GarrettLAMemo.DOCisgood.

Ex2:Srinivasan&GadaVALSHW#2.PPTisgood.

Thiswilltakeyouabitmoretimebutwillhelpavoidconfusion.

Size of File:

Do not send overly large files as attachments. Note: your clients may be reading their email at home or from their places of

travel where connectivity speeds can be a problem.

For very large files, you are better off sending a link to the site where the file isstored, so it can be downloaded at the convenience of the reader.

Email Domain/User Name

This is only for those lucky enough to have been admitted to the University ofWashington.

Email Domain:An important note in this world of spam and junk mail filters.

Your email domain connotes a brand image. Do you wish to portrayprofessionalism and credibility or the opposite?

The University of Washington is one of the top 20 globally ranked universities.The UW domain instantly bestows credibility on the email sender. Why would

one forsake such a domain for one that is less prestigious? In short, uw.edu oruwb.edu is a great domain to use for that all-important e-image.

With the increasing level of email security being employed by your faculty, manyemails from non-educational domains (or those from major corporate and

governmental employers) end up caught by the junk mail filter. Many faculty

while at work may not allow emails from private email domains (unless it is fromtheir mother or the three or four other people well known to them).

IfyouaresendingemailsfromanonUWaccount,bewarnedthattheUWfiltersonmanyfacultyaccountsareprettystrong(andmostnonUWemailsmayNotget

through).

Use your University of Washington email account for communication with yourfaculty. It may also stand you in very good stead when applying for jobs or

communicating with various governmental agencies and NGOs.

Maintaining your uw.edu or uwb.edu email addresses after you graduate can helpyour faculty members can stay in touch with you as and when necessary.

User Name:

Pleasetryandemailitfromanemailaccountthatdisplaysyournameclearly.

Make sure to select a user name wisely. This is particularly true when you are out

in the job market.

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Email addresses such as [email protected]; [email protected]; etc.are not a good idea. They do tend to create a bad image from the start.

Faculty on a number of occasions have had job opportunities come up but have no

way to contact their students after they graduate.

Your Professors are unlikely to send an important opportunity to someonewith an email such as [email protected] .

Mayyouremailsberead.Mayyouremailsgetforwarded.Mayyouneverlosean

opportunityoverapoorlycomposedemail.
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]:[email protected]

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